Miao Shuang’s fingers moved downward, starting to untie the sash.
This time Qi Yan finally showed some reaction, his gaze following to fall on Miao Shuang’s waist, his stern brows furrowing slightly.
“The general still won’t undress himself? Could it be you’re waiting for me to serve you?”
Having figured out the current situation, the Demon Lord, who possessed excellent adaptability, had already perfectly integrated into his role. He undid the sash in a few quick motions, casually tossing the lavish and elaborate wedding garment aside.
The fabric and craftsmanship of this wedding robe were top-tier, clearly an imperial gift at a glance, but this “divine grace” worn on the body of a “guilty official” who had just been released from prison, covered in wounds, could only be described as deeply incongruous.
Ugly. Better to strip it off.
Miao Shuang reached out to undo the frog buttons at Qi Yan’s collar, and took the opportunity to sit down on his lap, completely failing to notice that something had also fallen onto the bed along with the wedding garment he’d thrown aside.
The bundle of red fabric bulged with a lump, the thing buried inside pushing left and right, finally poking its head out — it turned out to be a small snake, pure white all over, its small bean-like eyes like red agate looking toward Miao Shuang, flicking its tongue in puzzled confusion, as if unable to understand why its master had discarded it.
Miao Shuang’s hand continued downward, and Qi Yan finally couldn’t help but grab his wrist, his brows locked tight as he demanded in a deep voice, “What exactly are you trying to do?”
“Hm? So you can speak?” Miao Shuang tilted his head with interest, his gaze stopping on Qi Yan’s moving throat. “I thought your voice had been poisoned mute too.”
It was just that this voice was far too hoarse, very different from Immortal Lord Bo Yan’s — he didn’t like it.
He reached out and gripped Qi Yan’s neck.
The icy fingers clamped around his throat, and Qi Yan instinctively wanted to resist — even though his martial arts had been completely crippled, he wasn’t about to be killed by a trick like this.
But in the next instant, the grip on his throat loosened, the thumb moving to his Adam’s apple, pressing down hard on it.
“…!”
The bizarre sensation made Qi Yan’s entire body stiffen. Amid the unbearable mix of pain and itching, Miao Shuang pressed close again, his crimson eyes setting off that face as both bewitching and sinister. “The general asks what I’m doing? On this day of our grand wedding, what else would I be doing but — making love.”
The warm, cool breath swept across his cheek like a snake’s tongue, and a faint anger visibly surfaced on Qi Yan’s face.
It was no wonder — a general of great military achievements, a hero who had campaigned in all directions, had been thrown into prison on trumped-up charges by a foolish ruler and tortured into a cripple, and now was being forced at gunpoint to marry a man of a foreign race.
And now, this Miao person of unknown origins wanted to take him to bed as well.
What humiliation this was. He, this vicious male consort aiding a tyrant in his evildoing, would surely be hated to the death by this man surnamed Qi.
But he particularly loved seeing Qi Yan in this state.
Angry but not venting it, enduring in silence — he hadn’t expected that Immortal Lord Bo Yan’s calm, expressionless face could show such rich emotion too.
This man surnamed Qi had lost his memory for now; once the day came when he remembered who he was and discovered that he, the foremost cultivator of the immortal path, had actually married and gone to bed with the Demon Lord who had brought calamity to the world — who knew what his reaction would be.
Just thinking about it was enough to make one’s whole body tremble with excitement.
“Why does the general look at me with such eyes?” Miao Shuang asked, feigning ignorance. “Could it be that according to you Han people’s traditions, one is supposed to be so cold to one’s newly wedded spouse on the wedding night?”
Qi Yan: “…”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Miao Shuang withdrew the claw that had been grinding against his throat, and with a sweep of his arm, took a cup of wine from the small table nearby. “According to you Han people’s traditions, the rite isn’t complete until this wine is drunk, right? Since that’s the case, then I’ll follow local customs.”
Qi Yan stared at him with a dark gaze, clearly not intending to accept the cup.
Miao Shuang, however, didn’t care whether he cooperated or not. He simply took a full mouthful of the wine from the cup, then tilted Qi Yan’s chin up and covered his lips with his own.
The fiery liquor was forced into his mouth, and Qi Yan couldn’t help but choke and cough, shock and disgust flashing across his face at the same time as he shoved the other man away hard.
The remaining wine in the cup splashed out from this push, soaking both of them, but Miao Shuang paid it no mind, instead catching his resisting hand and bringing it to his lips for a light kiss, the crystalline drops of wine sliding down his palm to land on his warm tongue.
Having his tiger’s mouth licked by that damp tongue, Qi Yan felt nothing but a chill of revulsion — every move this Miao person made exceeded his imagination. Rather than becoming husband and wife with this madman, he’d rather fight to the death right now.
The veins on Qi Yan’s scar-covered arm bulged, and Miao Shuang raised his eyes from his palm.
Such intense killing intent…
Exactly the same as that day when the long sword had been plunged into his chest.
Now this was starting to look like Immortal Lord Bo Yan.
The excitement in Miao Shuang’s eyes grew even stronger, making those blood-red eyes appear all the more bewitching. He straightened his waist, one hand braced on the back of the wheelchair, and lowered his voice. “Could it be the general wishes to defy the imperial decree? This marriage was personally bestowed by His Majesty — it would be better for both of us if the general cooperated a little.”
A strange sensation pressed against Qi Yan’s leg, and his body froze for a moment.
His finger was taken into Miao Shuang’s mouth, sharp teeth biting through a nail that hadn’t fully healed yet, the searing pain that reached straight to his heart through his fingertip jolting Qi Yan into complete alertness.
Even though his martial arts were entirely ruined, relying on his extraordinary hearing, he could still make out the rustling sounds outside the door.
The eunuch sent by His Majesty to watch him hadn’t left.
Eunuch Zhu had served His Majesty for many years and was already an old, cunning fox — if they didn’t make this performance convincing, they wouldn’t be able to deceive his eyes.
This Miao person’s behavior might be bizarre, but his words weren’t false.
He was now a condemned criminal, only awaiting execution after autumn — he had no right to fight to the death.
The kiss, carrying the taste of blood, forced its way into his mouth, fishy and salty and sticky. Qi Yan gripped the armrests of the wheelchair tightly with all ten fingers and closed his eyes.
****
Eunuch Zhu paced restlessly outside the bridal chamber.
His Majesty had ordered him to watch Qi Yan closely, and he didn’t dare slacken for even a moment — he kept watch the entire night.
It was already deep autumn, and the night’s autumn wind struck his body with a bone-piercing chill, making the fat he’d nurtured in the palace tremble uncontrollably; he could only rub his hands and breathe on them for warmth.
Of course, what tormented him most wasn’t the cold weather.
Inside the bridal chamber, the wedding candles flickered, shadows overlapped, and sounds of lovemaking were endless — hearing this, even this old eunuch, castrated for forty years, found his mouth watering, and the organ that no longer existed on his body seemed to briefly rise for a moment.
The household’s newly hired servants, not sleeping in the dead of night, kept sweeping the same few fallen leaves over and over, whispering with shifty eyes. “The general’s been tortured with severe punishment for three months, yet he can still be this vigorous — truly worthy of being our Great Yong’s number one fierce general!”
“Why do I feel like it’s that Miao person doing all the work? Tsk tsk, these barbarians really are different, so many tricks.”
“So how exactly do two men do it together?”
“Curious? Why don’t you poke a hole in the window paper and take a look?”
“I wouldn’t dare — how about you do it?”
The servants giggled and joked, not taking the “general” seriously at all. Finally one of them said, “I bet whoever administered the punishment went easy on him — there’s no way anyone could survive three months of severe interrogation and torture and still be alive.”
Eunuch Zhu swept a cold glance over them, his voice shrill and thin. “Keep talking and watch your tongues!”
The servants shuddered in fright and all fell silent at once, not daring to say another word, each dispersing on their own.
The sounds in the room didn’t stop until the latter half of the night; the wedding candles had also burned out. Eunuch Zhu, truly unable to hold out any longer, sat down under the eaves and dozed off.
Just as the sky was about to brighten, he was woken by the sudden sound of a door opening.
Miao Shuang leaned against the doorway, his robes only half put together, entirely unconcerned that half of a bloody bite mark showed on his shoulder. He narrowed his eyes in satisfaction, looking at the old eunuch’s bloated figure:
“Eunuch Zhu has kept watch here all night — have you heard enough? Could it be that your castration wasn’t thorough enough, and you still harbor romantic fantasies about such matters between man and wife?”
Eunuch Zhu was greatly alarmed, waving his hands repeatedly. “Madam, you mustn’t say such things recklessly — this old servant would lose his head! This humble one is merely following His Majesty’s orders, waiting here to attend to the general and madam.”
Attend to?
Miao Shuang savored this word for a moment, then said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Then I’ll trouble Eunuch to bring me some hot water.”
Having said this, he slammed the door shut again with a bang.
The corner of Eunuch Zhu’s mouth twitched.
He had been castrated and entered the palace at thirteen, having served the imperial household for over twenty years now — anyone who saw him had to respectfully address him as “Eunuch,” and aside from His Majesty himself, this was the first time anyone had dared to be so rude to him.
His Majesty’s conduct had grown increasingly erratic and absurd in recent years, actually believing the baseless words of a southern barbarian of a foreign race — this barbarian claimed he could pry open General Qi’s mouth and force out the whereabouts of that Sacred Gu.
A man with bones so stubborn that three months of severe torture couldn’t make him break — could a single Miao person really manage to subdue him?
He stared venomously at the firmly shut door, then raised his shrill, thin voice. “Someone, heat up some water, attend to madam’s bath—”
****
In the end, Miao Shuang didn’t want the servants to attend to him.
He had them fill the bathtub with hot water, then sent them away.
Untying the loose robe draped over his body, Miao Shuang stepped barefoot into the water and sat down, letting the steaming hot water submerge him all the way up to his shoulders.
His aching muscles and bones relaxed and loosened in the soak, his whole body, inside and out, pervaded with a pleasant, languid soreness.
His snow-white long hair spread across the surface of the water, then gradually sank beneath it. Miao Shuang lowered his head, gazing at his own reflection.
This body was slenderer than his own, but the face was nearly identical to his — he had practiced demonic cultivation techniques for many years, and his once-black hair had long since turned white, combined with a pair of blood-colored eyes, and he loved to wear red and flaunt himself about — people fittingly called him the “White-Haired Crimson Demon.”
…Miao Shuang couldn’t bring himself to approve of these righteous cultivators’ aesthetic taste in nicknames.
Perhaps to match the character setting, this book’s description of his appearance was largely similar to his original self, except the reason for the white hair had changed —
The Miao Territories had a cruel method of refining Gu: placing eighty-one kinds of deadly poisonous Gu insects into the same large vat, giving them no food, letting the Gu insects slaughter each other, and whichever survived in the end became the Gu King. Then the Gu King would be made to bite a young child with hair still in tufts — whoever could withstand the Gu poison could then command the Gu King, becoming the “Great Shaman” recognized by the Gu King.
Because of absorbing an excessive amount of toxin, one’s appearance would change to some degree — some became hideous and grotesquely deformed from then on, while others, like Miao Shuang, merely had their hair turn white and their eyes turn red.
In short, it was going from Demon Lord to Gu King… either way, they were both unorthodox, evil paths, so Miao Shuang could draw on his experience readily enough.
Now that he had none of his own cultivation power, and this body neither practiced martial arts nor had any internal energy, after a night of adjusting, he had already become quite adept at using Gu poison with ease.
Used it on whom to adjust? Naturally, on Qi Yan.
Poisoning him, then dissolving the poison before it could take effect — this fellow, busy with the throes of passion, probably didn’t even realize how many different poisons had passed through his body in the span of just two hours.
As his thoughts turned to Qi Yan, the water had grown considerably cold. Miao Shuang stood up, stirring up and breaking apart the reflection floating on the water’s surface.
He casually threw the bathrobe over himself and walked out past the screen, water droplets he hadn’t wiped off trailing down his pale skin, past his reddened, chafed inner thighs, all the way down to his ankles and onto the floor.
Miao Shuang glanced into the bedroom — Qi Yan was still asleep.
He couldn’t help but let out a scornful laugh.
Tossed about for only half the night and already sleeping this late.
Weak.
Mortal bodies really were inferior in constitution — if this had been back at Myriad Demons Peak, anyone who couldn’t emerge from three days and three nights of dual cultivation would become a laughingstock, a topic of gossip over tea.
And to think he’d even given this man surnamed Qi two Gu insects meant to strengthen the body and build vigor.